


What This Old Thing?

by Poemsingreenink



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: AU, Everybody Lives, Gen, M/M, Magic, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: Red Harvest has to deal with Billy, Goodnight and Sam who have been turned into teenagers.





	1. Chapter 1

1.

If there was any justice in the world this annoying disaster would have happened to Horne. Horne possessed an air that said he was patient, paternal and more than willing to bite people if he thought it lent weight to a moral argument.

But Red Harvest wasn’t a lunatic or a child, and hadn’t bitten anyone in years.

“Stop! Stop that!!”

Though apparently Goodnight didn’t share that particular limitation since his teeth were currently taking a bite out of Billy’s skinny bicep.

“I’m going to rip your hair out!”

Though to be fair, Red Harvest had never asked Goodnight at what age his people consider children to be adults. If there were ceremonies or songs. Maybe they just shoved rifles into their hands, and told them to run off now and shoot whoever they wanted. Who knew what strange rituals Goodnight’s people practiced.

Right now he looked about sixteen. Round faced, smoothed skinned, and with nothing but regularly colored teeth trying to draw Billy’s blood.

Billy looked about the same age, but skinny as a birch tree without even a hint of the lean muscle he possessed as an adult. His hair was much longer, free of its ties and pins and Red Harvest assumed he would have pushed the strands out of his face if he wan’t busy trying to pull Goodnight’s unslicked hair out by the roots while trying to land clumsily kicks to the other boy’s shin.

Clearly “brawling” wasn’t something either Billy or Goodnight’s people considered important for young men to learn.

Turning his back to the idiots who were now trying to throw punches, and shadow box in too large for their narrow waists britches, Red Harvest jerked his chin in Sam’s direction.

“Help me break them up.”

Sam peered at him through the spy glass he’d found while rooting through his own saddle bags, and gave Red Harvest the most petulant shrug he’d ever seen.

“Don’t see how their bickering is any of my business.”

Red glared at his baby faced leader, Sam’s face was narrower now without the years of worries weighing him down, and tried to telegraph with his eyes alone that listening to Red Harvest was really in his best interest.

Sam smiled brightly at discovering a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in the bag, and happily cracked the book open.

“You son of a bitch! My nose!”

Red Harvest whirled around expecting to see blood, and instead found that Billy has grabbed hard into Goodnight’s nose and was repeatedly yanking on it.

Billy said something in a language Red didn’t know, but thought he understood just fine from the absolute murder that was behind the words.

“I will deal with you later,” Red said, in what he hoped was an ominous tone.

Sam ignored him, and gently turned a page.

* * *

 

2.

Red Harvest had never had to pry two brawling sixteen-year-olds apart, and then shake them like disobedient kittens before dropping them to the ground, but as it turned out well-muscles arms were just the thing he needed to accomplish that particular goal.

Billy’s knife belt had slipped right off him during the original brawl which probably accounted for the lack of blood, and Goody’s pistol has been kicked to the other side of the camp site which probably accounted for the lack of holes in anyone’s flesh.

Curious, Red Harvest pulled one of the knives from its sheath, and held it under Billy’s nose. Something he immediately regretted when Billy’s face went from mulish anger to wide-eyed terror.

Next to him Goodnight went as still as a rabbit spotted by a owl. At least they weren’t yelling or pulling on each other’s noses anymore.

“Here,” Red said, fighting the urge to shift uncomfortably under their gazes. “Take it.”

“No, sir.” Billy said, skinny shoulders hunched up and the rest of him doing his best to sink into the earth. “Not mine.”

“Take it,” Red said, unnerved at Billy’s refusal of his most prized possession. “This is yours.”

“Are you challenging him to a knife fight to the death!” Goodnight squeaked.

“No,no.” Billy was now doing his best to hide behind his hair. “It’s not.”

Red Harvest stared at Goody. “A what?”

“Might be mine.”

Red turned to see Sam peering at the group of them. The book was still open in his lap, but there was a tension in his shoulders that was new.

“I’ve been known to drop things from time to time. I’m a clumsy person is all.”

The tone of voice was…familiar, but stiffer than Red was used to. Unpracticed enough that Sam’s fear bled around the edges of the heroism that had risen to the surface.

Red Harvest almost laughed. A younger Sam was still Sam it seemed. He wondered if he could push Sam into speech making or singing? Maybe he should wave the knife under Billy’s nose again just to see.

But he didn’t actually like watching two of his idiot friends cower in front of him, and the barely concealed hostility rolling off of Sam was unnerving.

Red slid the knife into his own belt.

“No one is getting stabbed or challenged to a fight to the death. Stop looking at me like that,” Red Harvest said firmly. “But no more hair pulling or biting each other. You’re not coyotes.”

Standing, Red brushed the dirt off his knees. Reaching a hand down he pulled first Goodnight, and then Billy into their feet.

“Come on,” he said herding Billy toward the horses. “I’ve got something for your hair.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Red Harvest figured that rifling through another person’s belongings was okay if they didn’t remember the belongings were theirs in the first place. Still, just to be sure, and to quiet the small nagging guilt that came with dumping Billy’s saddle bags onto the grass Red held the bag up, and said “Tell me it’s okay to look through this.”

 

“I don’t know. It’s not-“

 

“That’s not what I told you to do.”

 

To Red’s relief, frustration and annoyance were quickly returning to Billy’s demeanor, and he let out an annoyed huff before saying “It’s okay for you to look through that. Even though it’s not mine, and I don’t know why you’d ask me.”

 

Red Harvest ignored him, and carefully started separating out the items he didn’t need. A packet of letters tied with a green ribbon, a wet stone, a small half empty bottle of oil, tobacco pouch, rolling papers, shaving kit, a delicate and beautifully lacquered stick tipped with a greenand gold flower that Red thought might be a hair ornament, but one he’d never seen Billy wear. Sewing kit, empty tin box, hoof pick, and finally all the way at the bottom a leather hair tie that had been wrapped around the glittering silver hair pin he’d seen Billy end more than one life with.

 

He scrutinized the Billy sitting in front of him with a hard eye. Billy went pale under the look, but then seemed to remember Red Harvest had promised he wouldn’t be stabbing anyone. He clenched his jaw and puffed his chest out which just made Red think of the time an adolescent goose still covered more down than actual feather had tried to intimidate him.

 

He found a silver backed brush and silvercomb engraved with small fish in Goodnight’s bag, and the ostentatious trinkets gave Red an idea.

 

“What language am I speaking right now?” Red Harvest asked Billy as he put the hair pin back in the bag. Weapons were for adults who knew how to use them.

 

“English,” Billy said confidently.

 

“Is English the only language you know?”

 

“No.”

 

“When did you lean English?” Red asked, and scooped up a small rock.

 

Billy opened his mouth, and then closed it. 

 

“I...learned it....umm.” 

 

“Great. Catch!”

 

Billy’s hand snapped up, and caught the stone Red Harvest had just whipped at his head.

 

“You threw a rock at me!”

 

“And you caught it. When did you learn to do that?”

 

Billy looked at the stone in his hand, and bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

 

Red snapped his fingers at Goodnight, and motioned to the spot of grass behind Billy.

 

“Get over here and brush his hair.” 

 

“What?!” Goodnight complained even as he marched forward.

 

“No!”

 

Billy’s hair had become a knotted mess during the tussle, and Red Harvest rolled his eyes as he shoved tie, comb and brush into Goodnight’s twitching hands. 

 

Goodnight sat, and Billy glared. 

 

“You messed it up. You fix it. I also don’t care about either of your feelings so shut up, do as I say or I will-oh what the hell Sam!”

 

20,000 Leagues Under TheSea was dangling from Sam’s right hand, but his left was busy supporting the weight of a yawning red fox kit.

 

“I made a new friend,” Sam said casually. “Please refer to him as Captain Nemo.”

 

Red Harvest hasn’t lost his tempter outside of a battle in years, and he wasn’t about to do it now. What if when this was all over they remembered him losing his composure? He’d have to leave, find new friends and rebuild his calm image from the ground up. That sounded like far too much work.

 

“Captain Nemo’s mother is probably looking for him,” Red Harvest said. “Go put his back before your smell scares her off, and she abandons him in the woods where he will starve to death or get eaten by a mountain lion. Probably while crying about how sad he is that you ruined his life.”

 

Sam looked thoughtful. As though he was truly measuring the weight of Red’s words. 

He gently rubbed his thumb over Captain Nemo’s head. 

 

“Nah.”

**Author's Note:**

> This seemed like a fun idea when I came up with it, and boy was I right. These are both of the pieces I originally posted on Tumblr. More possibly to come. Who can say.


End file.
